


finding birdland

by fio



Category: Sakamichi no Apollon | Kids on the Slope
Genre: M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:31:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fio/pseuds/fio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sentarou finishes his cleaning duties as fast as he can most days, and every time he wanders over, Kaoru greets him with a put-upon frown that always eases into a smile, wide and familiar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	finding birdland

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pocketbookangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketbookangel/gifts).



> details from the manga ending are referenced, but this more or less continues directly from the more open-ended anime finale. the duties of a Catholic priest-in-training and the workings of a clinic are largely fuzzed over in this, but Sentarou is 8 years into a 10-year training to become a full-fledged priest and Kaoru owns and runs his own small practice. takes place in 1976. title and lyrics from "lullaby of birdland" off the series' soundtrack.

_oh, lullaby of birdland_  
 _that's what I always hear,_  
 _when you sigh,_  
 _never in my wordland_  
 _could there be words to reveal_  
 _in a phrase how I feel_

~

The clinic is small and mostly empty, a few pieces of furniture and a week's worth of supplies filling up only one room. The island's other doctor recommended a supplier, but they won't be able to ship anything out for a few more days. It's a big change from a Tokyo hospital, and nothing like the Nishimi family clinic, but it's got the important things. A dedicated doctor, and people who need him, across the way in the orphanage and from further in town.

Sentarou finishes his cleaning duties as fast as he can most days, and every time he wanders over, Kaoru greets him with a put-upon frown that always eases into a smile, wide and familiar.

~

"Do you really know the new doctor?" one of the children asks.

"Yup. We're old classmates," Sentarou beams, even though he's answered the same question at least twenty different times today, not counting how often he explained it in the days before. The new clinic opened up less than two weeks ago, so he's not surprised by everyone's curiosity. But the island is tiny and he's lived there long enough to know the new doctor will be the talk of the town for months to come.

He hums as he sweeps between the pews, the kids giggling behind him and trying to guess the tune. He doesn't have his records anymore—he doesn't own much of anything, aside from his robes and his pen—but he promises to play the song for them one day.

"Oh oh! Will you play with the drums again?"

Sentarou laughs, picking up a bible left behind in the seats and tucking it under his arm. "No, not for a while. I got in pretty big trouble for that."

Wako, one of the younger girls, starts to pout, hands gripping her shirt as she struggles to keep back tears. "Wanna hear! Wanna play!" she whines until a hand settles on her head and she looks up, lip trembling while Sentarou gives her an understanding nod.

"Sometimes, my fingers itch to play those old drums. You ever feel that kinda thing?" he asks, bending down as the kids crowd around him. Wako shakes her head, the other children doing the same behind her. "I used to play every day, and it was a lot of fun, but no matter how important it is to enjoy yourself and find things you love doing, responsibilities come first. So when my fingers itch, I put 'em to work cleaning the church or helping out with you guys," he says with a wink, pinching at Wako's cheek and making her giggle, "That way, when I _do_ get to play, it feels like a reward for working so hard, which makes me play even _better_."

"Really?" the kids chirp together, and Sentarou nods. They dart off immediately, finding things to put away or banisters to dust, startling a few of the passing nuns in their haste to be helpful.

"You always were good with kids," a voice says behind him, making him jump. He turns around to see Kaoru, face sweaty and pink as he smiles.

"Heya, Bon."

"I wish you'd stop calling me that," Kaoru says, looking irritated. His hair's gotten longer and his face is skinnier, but he still looks the same when he's scolding someone. Sentarou tries to hide his smirk by turning around, holding the broom over his shoulder and walking towards the back to put the bible under his arm with the others.

"Why, 'cause you're not a rich kid anymore?"

He hears more than he sees Kaoru cross his arms over his chest, following after him as he says, "No, because half the kids I see around here are already calling me Bon-sensei."

"Bon-sensei, huh?" Sentarou repeats, putting down the bible and opening the closet door to throw in the broom. "Suits you."

"No it doesn't!" Kaoru protests, but when Sentarou looks at him, he's already starting to smile. "But what about you? What am I supposed to call you?"

"Some of the kids call me priest-in-training, most of the other priests and nuns just call me 'Hey you!'," he says, closing the closet again. Kaoru rolls his eyes as he laughs, unsurprised to hear Sentarou still gets into trouble. "But Sen is fine. It'd be weird hearing you call me 'Father,' anyway."

"Why?"

For a moment, Sentarou thinks he hears something strange in Kaoru's tone. Disappointment, maybe hurt. He turns back to Kaoru, sees his face is carefully blank, and decides he imagined it.

"You're the only one on this island who knows me. From before I came here, I mean. If you started calling me 'Father' or priest-in-training or something, it'd feel like you've forgotten the old me. I dunno why but... just that, more than anything, I don't want to happen."

Kaoru's face turns pink again, bangs falling into his face as Sentarou watches him. Eventually he clicks his tongue against his cheek and mumbles, "Acting all cool..."

Sentarou laughs, drapes his arm around Kaoru's shoulders, and drags him towards the kitchen for dinner.

~

Summer passes slowly, even with most of the older children from the orphanage hanging around all day because of school being on break. Weddings are more common in spring and autumn when the weather is cooler, so the few ceremonies they hold at the church don't need Sentarou to preside over them. With less things happening at the church, there's less to clean, so most days, Sentarou goes on field trips with the kids, to parks, to some of the parishioners' homes, but mostly to the clinic.

"It's Bon-sensei!" Shigeru, one of the oldest, hollars the moment he spots Kaoru opening the door as they all walk down the driveway. The younger children mimic him, chorusing together with chirps of, "Bon!" "Sensei!" and "Bon-sensei!"

Sentarou can already picture the annoyed grimace waiting for him, even though he's too far away to make out much more than Kaoru's glasses.

"Sennnnntaaaaaarouuuuuuu," Kaoru growls, already fuming when the group of them finally reach the steps.

"Yo," Sentarou greets casually, using the feet of the kid riding on his shoulders to wave.

"This is a _clinic_. You know. A _business_. Not a park for you to bring your whole congregation to for a playdate. I could be called out any minute for an emergency!" Kaoru points out, waving his hands emphatically around him. Sentarou makes an exaggerated pouting face, glancing at Shigeru and the others to copy him, until the whole lot of them look on the verge of tears. Kaoru caves instantly with a heavy sigh before he says, "Just. Don't let any of them wander where I can't see. And watch out for snakes."

"Snakes!" the kids shout, sprinting for the bushes in search of them in spite of Kaoru's warnings.

He shakes his head in defeat, collapsing down beside Sentarou and pulling his glasses off to wipe at the sweat on his forehead. "You're a spoiled brat, y'know that?"

Sentarou grins and bumps his shoulder against Kaoru, watching his face until it breaks out into a matching smile.

"I'm only spoiled because you never turn me away."

"And I wonder whose fault that is," Kaoru growls, pinching Sentarou's ear playfully and pulling him closer. He flails his arms around in the air as he cries for forgiveness, the kids looking up from the bushes and bugs they're chasing to laugh at him. After a while, Kaoru relents, but Sentarou doesn't pull his face away. It takes Kaoru a moment to react, the two of them staring at each other until his eyes go wide and he pulls back, giving Sentarou an embarrassed look before pushing to his feet and mumbling about getting some tea for the kids.

Sentarou scratches at his cheek, drags a thumb over his mouth, and figures he's imagining things again when Kaoru returns, perfectly at ease while he scolds both him and the kids running too far down the driveway.

That night, Sentarou dreams of eyelashes and pink skin.

~

It's the middle of September when Shigeru breaks his leg.

"I'll tell Nishimi-sensei," one of the nuns says, running ahead while the head priest lifts Shigeru off the ground to carry him across the way to the clinic. The kids trail behind him, staring in nervous silence while Shigeru whimpers in his arms.

"Hey," Sentarou whispers, kneeling in the grass to get the kids' attention. They glance at him, some of them grabbing his robes with shaky fingers and the others looking back and forth between him and the retreating backs of the other priests and nuns, Shigeru's sobs getting harder to hear.

"Will Shige-chan be okay?"

"Yeah."

"How do you know?" Keisuke, one of the older kids, asks, sounding doubtful.

"Because we'll pray for him," Sentarou says, and the children nod. "But, more than that, you know why he'll be good as new in no time?"

"Why?"

"Because Bon-sensei is the best doctor there is."

Most of the kids' faces light up, their worry disappearing with Sentarou's reassurance. A few of them cling tighter onto his robes until he promises a few more times that Shigeru will be okay, but eventually another nun manages to usher them all back inside for dinner. Sentarou breaks out into a run in the opposite direction as soon as the last kid stumbles inside.

Shigeru's wailing gets louder the closer he gets, until he trips up the steps, sprints down the hall and finds himself in the middle of the patient room. The nuns and other priests all jump at his sudden entrance, but Kaoru just nods, expectant. Sentarou watches transfixed as Kaoru talks one of the priests through giving Shigeru something for the pain and helping him re-set the broken bone in Shigeru's leg. He looks so calm and in control with the steady, effortless motions of his hands as he works, that Sentarou believes he really might be the best doctor there is.

It takes a while to get a cast made and set, but Shigeru is carried back to the church not too long after dark. Sentarou stays behind to help Kaoru search for crutches that might be small enough for a child, but spends most of it staring at Kaoru's hands when he's not bumping into walls or knocking his head against things.

"Are you okay? Have you eaten today?" Kaoru starts asking once he notices Sentarou's inability to concentrate and increased clumsiness.

"Ah, yeah. I'm fine," Sentarou says, frowning.

"No, there's definitely something wrong with you."

"No there isn't."

"Oi, you aren't fooling me, so just tell me already."

"I said I'm fine!"

Kaoru tackles him, attempting to pin him down to better interrogate him, but Sentarou manages to push him off for long enough to start crawling away. He doesn't get very far before Kaoru grabs him by the robe to flip him onto his back and sits down on his belly to keep him in place.

"I change my mind," Sentarou says, voice strained by the weight sitting on him making his breaths shallow, "You're the worst doctor ever."

"Oh. _Is. That. So_ ," Kaoru grounds out through clenched teeth, grinding his knuckles roughly against Sentarou's head.

"Quit it, quit it," Sentarou shouts between laughs, reaching up to grab Kaoru's wrists and hold them away from his head. He notices how _strong_ they feel and absently rubs his thumbs against the bottom of Kaoru's palms.

It takes Sentarou longer than it should to realize what position they're in, the pieces not clicking into place until Kaoru goes from breathing hard to being very quiet, wrists no longer struggling against his hands. He finds that he doesn't mind it, and even wishes he could see more of Kaoru's face behind the hair hiding it as he starts to blush.

"Let go, I'll let you up," he mumbles. Sentarou hesitates, but eventually his hands slip away from Kaoru's wrists, releasing him. "Sorry."

"'S fine. I'm used to roughhousing," Sentarou says, sitting up slowly. Kaoru isn't facing him anymore, probably to try and hide his blush away, and no matter how hard Sentarou thinks, _Look at me_ , he doesn't turn around.

"It's fine with kids, but we're not teenagers anymore."

"So?"

" _So_ , I should know better than to—" he starts, voice getting angry, but he cuts himself off and stands up, leaving the room. Sentarou rushes to his feet, moving to follow after him, but almost gets hit in the face with a crutch when he steps out the door. "This is the only one I found that would be a good size for Shigeru. I'll phone in an order now, that way they'll probably arrive by the weekend."

"Bon—"

"You should get back," Kaoru says, walking away, leaving Sentarou to stare after him, grip tightening around the crutch in his hands.

~

"We haven't seen Bon-sensei in a while," one of the boys complains as he helps put away dishes.

"Yeah, only Shigeru-kun gets to!" another girl pouts.

"Bon-sensei! Bon-sensei!" the little ones shout, excited just to hear his name.

Sentarou sighs, chin resting on his arms where he's folded them over his mop handle. He hasn't finished cleaning the dining room floor, but he can't concentrate. He hasn't seen Kaoru since the day Shigeru broke his leg, both because it's usually the nuns that take Shigeru over for his check ups while Sentarou works, and because he's not sure what he's supposed to say anyway. "Bon-sensei is busy. And you guys have classes, so we can't go catch bugs at the clinic, either. He might come for Christmas, though."

"Why doesn't he come for mass?"

"Bon isn't Christian, like most Japanese."

"But you're Bon-sensei's friend, right? Can't you ask him to come?"

Sentarou sighs, standing up straight as he gets back to mopping the floor. "Time to focus on cleaning up," he says, and the children make disappointed faces but don't ask after Bon-sensei for a while.

For weeks, all he dreams about is soft but steady hands, dancing across a piano.

~

It's not until the week before Christmas that Sentarou sees Kaoru again.

On an island this far south, they don't get snow for very long, but winter this year is surprisingly cold. There's a light snowfall in the early morning, enough sticking to the ground by the time afternoon hits for the head priest to send Sentarou out to clear the steps. He's almost finished when he hears the beginning notes of a familiar melody sounding through the air, soft and slow.

He dashes inside, nearly knocking over the people he passes, and comes to a stop in time to see Kaoru standing in front of the organ.

"You call that jazz?" Sentarou asks, smirking, but Kaoru doesn't return it and it quickly falls off his face. "Bon, I'm—"

"Ricchan called me. She wants to visit us for Christmas. I just came to tell you that."

"Oh, okay," Sentarou says, thrown off. Ritsuko had sent him several cards over the last few months telling him of her plans to visit when she could get time off and she'd called to remind him a few days ago, too. He didn't need Kaoru to tell him, especially if he'd heard from Ritsuko herself. He wondered if maybe Ritsuko had asked Kaoru to come check on him. He didn't think he sounded that out of it on the phone, but he'd been getting odd looks for a while now no matter how much he insisted he was fine, and Ritsuko had always been extra sensitive to his moods.

He snaps out of his thoughts and sees Kaoru already walking away, heading for the opposite door, and he runs over to catch him by the elbow, keeping him from leaving.

"Oi," Kaoru grumbles, tugging to try and get his arm back. "Don't you have things to do?"

"I'm sorry. For whatever made you mad. I'm not... I've _never_ been good with other people's feelings, but I know you're upset with me. So. Whatever I did, I'm sorry."

Kaoru looks up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time in months, and gives him a smile that he sees through in an instant. "You didn't do anything. I've just been busy, that's all."

He doesn't try to slip out of Sentarou's grip, waiting for him to give up and let go, but he doesn't want to this time. Instead, he eases on his grip enough to slide his hand down to find Kaoru's, then pulls him back towards the organ and the drumset hidden underneath a sheet.

"Sen— Sen, what're you—"

"Play with me," Sentarou orders, pushing Kaoru down onto the piano bench.

"What? No way, I have things to do—" he starts to say, shaking his head, but Sentarou's hand squeezes over his shoulder before sliding off as he walks over to the drums. Kaoru sits and waits for him to pull the cover off and find his drumsticks. "... Won't you get in trouble?"

"Probably," Sentarou grins, tapping out a count on the bass drum before hitting at the symbols. In moments, he's started up an excited, wild beat, and Kaoru only takes a couple more beats to dive right in, hammering keys in a staccato frenzy, matching his pace and finding a melody.

By the time the head priest runs in, ready to give them a long lecture for playing so loudly this late, they're already out the door, sprinting down the slope together.

They reach the bottom, slowing down until they reach a bus stop to lean against and catch their breath, puffy white clouds of steam forming in the cold, December air. Sentarou reaches a hand out to slide around Kaoru's neck as he always does, but Kaoru blocks it, and he lets it fall away. "You're still upset with me," Sentarou says, chest still heaving as he breathes in through his nose.

Kaoru shakes his head, but stares angrily down at his shoes. "Not with you. With me."

"Why?"

Kaoru doesn't answer, breathing slowing down until he can't see the white puffs anymore.

"I know I'm not a fully ordained priest, but you _can_ confess to me. I won't tell anyone if you won't." Kaoru laughs at that, and Sentarou smiles softly.

"Hey, Sen?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think I loved Ricchan?"

Sentarou blinks, rubs at the back of his neck, and tries not to think about why that question bothers him when he spent most of high school assuming they were dating anyway.

"Well... yeah," he answers after a moment, frowning at how unhappy he sounds to say it.

"I do, too. But then. If I do, why did I spend almost an entire decade thinking only about you?"

Sentarou turns to stare, jaw dropping open and steamy air pouring out of his mouth.

Kaoru doesn't look at him as he explains, "For a while, right after you left, I was so _mad_ that all I did was try to forget everything about you. I spent so much time trying to forget that all I did was think _about_ you, and it made me miserable because I missed you so much. And then, after a few months in Tokyo at school, when I'd almost managed to do it and move on, I found a picture of us, and then spent the next seven years searching for you. I'd dream about finding you, or hearing you playing something and follow the notes, as if I'd see you the next time I turned around, like you'd never even left. I tried to keep in contact with Ricchan while looking for you, but when I couldn't, it didn't upset me. Because she wasn't who I was chasing after. It was you."

The warmth from running is quickly fading, and both of them start to shiver long before Kaoru looks up from the ground and Sentarou manages to say a word.

"You... chased me?"

Kaoru laughs again, and it makes Sentarou's mouth go dry and chest feel tight.

"Yeah. But you're a priest now. Almost. And we're both men. And every day, I wish I hadn't realized any of this. I wish I could just play jazz with you and be happy with that."

He pushes away from the bus stop, heading for the hill that leads back up to the church and the clinic across the way, and Sentarou reaches out to stop him, sliding fingers around his wrist and holding him still. Kaoru doesn't fight against him, but he doesn't look back.

"You should ask a few of the nuns if they could help you cook one or two of Ricchan's favorite dishes. She'll be here in a few days."

Sentarou lets go, and watches Kaoru's back as he makes his way up the slope. By the time he manages to make his legs work again and walk back up to the church, he can't feel his hands and his face is stinging red from the cold.

~

"The ferry won't be here for a few more days," Kaoru says, expression casual, but Sentarou can see the discomfort in the way he stands so stiff in the doorway. He doesn't want to see him, probably even planned to hide until the day Ritsuko arrived and get to the docks just as the ferry came in so he didn't have to be with Sentarou alone. But the sun has just risen, the birds have been let out, and even though he has plenty more duties to get through before the day is over, Sentarou can't wait another moment longer to talk to him.

"I couldn't sleep last night," he says, barging inside and ignoring the irritated grumbling coming from behind him.

"Then I'll give you a sleep aid so you can leave," Kaoru offers, eager to be rid of him, but Sentarou walks further into the clinic, looking for the door that leads to the half of the building that served as Kaoru's house.

"But if I did, I'd have dreamt about you," he says, trying every door he comes across. It's not until he finds the right one and opens it up that he realizes Kaoru had frozen back down the hallway. Sentarou walks back, takes Kaoru by the hand, and pulls him into his front room, closing the door behind him to pin him against it.

"What're you—"

"I left because I didn't want anyone to find me until I wasn't hurting people anymore," Sentarou explains, words falling out of him in a rush. He'd practiced saying something like this for years, but still hadn't found the right time or way to say it by the time Kaoru found him until now. Kaoru is staring at him, eyes wide and confused behind dark-rimmed glasses, slowly beginning to understand. "I hurt Rikko, I hurt Sacchan, I hurt Yurika, my grandma and my dad and my classmates and strangers. And I hurt you so many times, not realizing what I was doing until you were already hurting. I had to get away, learn to stop, and hopefully find you all again when I deserved it. But..."

"But?" Kaoru repeats, voice barely a whisper.

Sentarou beams, brings a hand up to Kaoru's neck, brushes his fingers through long hair and presses his palm to warm, blushing skin. "But for almost a decade, I dreamt about your smiling face and the songs we used to play, praying that you'd find me soon, even if I didn't deserve you yet. And you did. You came, and you _stayed_."

Kaoru's glasses start to fog up from how hot his face is getting, and Sentarou chuckles as he reaches up his other hand to slide them off his face. His thumb slides against Kaoru's jaw, making him shiver against the door.

"But you're a priest now. And we're men—"

"Technically, just a priest-in-training. And I'm supposed to be married to God, but nobody said that meant I can't be in love with you, man or not."

Kaoru sucks in a sharp breath at that, and Sentarou can't pretend he imagines the way Kaoru's eyes drop to his lips before doing the same himself. So he leans in and presses a clumsy kiss against his mouth.

It takes two seconds before Kaoru is pushing at him, making him pull away long enough for him to get out, "That makes no sense, you idiot! If you're married to God, of _course_ you can't be—" before Sentarou is kissing him again, harder, pressing their bodies closer against the door until Kaoru melts into him, hands digging into his sleeves.

~

Sentarou gets a scolding for skipping out so early in the morning, and finds himself burdened with extra chores that day, but finishes by dinner time and makes his way back to the clinic.

That night, Kaoru hesitates a few times pulling open Sentarou's robes, knowing Sentarou's reasoning, despite all his confidence, is lousy at best and that all of his worries, both voiced and still unsaid, would have to be addressed. But Sentarou never stops kissing him or rocking their hips together, unexperienced and rough but eager to learn and easily picking up what feels good, what doesn't, and what makes Kaoru sigh against his tongue. They find their way to bed, but stop at just touching each other atop the sheets, feeling their way around and learning how to make the other fall apart.

Sentarou moans Kaoru's name when he comes over their joined fingers, and sighs when Kaoru comes against his hip, fingers digging into the skin of his back and Sentarou's name slipping past his lips.

For every night after, Sentarou dreams of music, lilting and slow, and every part of Kaoru that he fell in love with, over and over again.

~

_lullaby of birdland whisper low_  
 _kiss me sweet, then we'll go_  
 _flying high in birdland,_  
 _high in the sky up above_  
 _and its all because_  
 _we're in love_


End file.
